The new PED boasts many upgrades—new diagrams, new software, and a free new tool.

To get anywhere deliberately, you need a map.

Behind the wheel you’ve got old-fashioned maps and modern GPS. I confess to getting a smug satisfaction out of watching the blue dot on my iPhone converge on the target red dot.

In the lab, phase diagrams are among the most useful of maps for materials scientists. They reveal the possibilities allowed by thermodynamics, showing which constituent elements or compounds can react or transform to form phases, the stability of those phases, and temperature pathways for arriving at the desired “destination” in the phase diagram (no blue dot, though).

The collection features more than 25,000 phase diagrams and the full commentary that distinguishes the ACerS–NIST from any other. The new release includes 637 new figures and 1,000 new diagrams from a wide-range of inorganic material systems including:

The new DVD includes all the more than 5,000 electronic-only phase diagrams published since 2008 and all of the information published in the 21-volume print series.

All new software makes the database easier than ever to search and use. Some of the software is “under the hood” stuff and will make it easier and quicker for us to add new diagrams. However, the user interface is now browser-based and has expanded search functionality. For example, keyterms have been added for searching based on application or material systems.

NIST also is offering a free phase diagram editor, a nifty tool NIST uses to digitize phase equilibria diagrams called the PED Editor. The tool, downloadable from the NIST website, allows users to extract data from the diagrams, as well as digitizing graphs and creating two-dimensional scientific drawings.